Rometta was the last Byzantine Sicily: when everything else was Arab, this stronghold above the road to Messina still held out. The siege lasted two years; on 5 May 965, having sent the women, children and old people out through the walls, the defenders refused to surrender and fell fighting, one by one.
The year before, Constantinople had tried to save them: thirty thousand men landed to break the siege were routed below the walls, on 24 and 25 October 964. Of the Greek past the church of Santa Maria dei Cerei remains, on a Greek cross plan, built between the fifth and sixth centuries; at the top of the town lie the ruins of Frederick's palace. There are 6,541 residents.
Borgo Storico Pantano
Arancino · Pasta alla Norma · Pitone messinese
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Next up: Saint Leo, the bishop of Catania who found refuge as a hermit in Rometta, Saturday 20 February
Nearest airport: Reggio Calabria, 23 km away
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📅 Every year, on 20 February
Rometta celebrates Saint Leo on 20 February; the saint, bishop of Catania known as the Thaumaturge, found asylum in Rometta between 725 and 780, after opposing the iconoclastic edicts of the Byzantine emperors, retiring to a cave on the Peloritan hills.
Saffron rice, ragù with peas and caciocavallo inside a golden cone-shaped crust: in Catania it is masculine and pointed, and the quarrel with Palermo over the name is serious.
Read more →A thin sheet of dough folded into a half-moon and fried, with escarole, tuma cheese, anchovies and black pepper inside: Messina’s street food, to eat hot straight from the rosticceria.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
